thin out

“He drove tractors, scythed weeds to clear streams, worked alongside his men to repair his boundaries, re-fence his sheep fields and thin out his woodlands, enjoying both the physical labour and the satisfaction of a job most competently done.”

Come To Grief

“Antony had decided to ignore western Macedonia and northern Epirus; to try to hold them would stretch his front and thin out the density of his troops and ships, therefore let Octavian have them and the Via Egnatia, the great eastern road.”

Simon & Schuster: Antony and Cleopatra

“It was dark and cool under the high, stamped-tin ceiling, and I drank coffee and watched the lunch crowd thin out at one o’clock.”

Simon & Schuster: Jolie Blon’s Bounce